Today’s media is filled with news of a data loss epidemic. It seems every company, financial institution, and government agency has suddenly become irresponsible about protecting our private information. Exposure of private information opens up the undeniable possibility of identity theft for all of us. What are you doing to protect yourself from this plague?

Like this article? We recommend

Identity theft occurs when your personal information is obtained and used to
commit fraud. Personal information that can be exploited for this purpose
includes your name and address, credit card and bank account information, and
Social Security number (SSN). Exposure of this critical private information is a
threat for
thousands,
even
millions
of people.

What Forms of Identity Theft Exist Today?

Your personal information can be obtained in many different ways. Schemes for
stealing your information have evolved to take advantage of technology, but
old-fashioned methods are still very effective as well.

Dumpster Diving: Very similar to theft, dumpster diving
consists of going through trash looking for bills and statements and other
papers with your personal information on it.

Phishing: Phishing generally takes place via email in the
form of spam, or on websites designed to collect personal information. Phishing
emails look as though they've been sent from legitimate financial
institutions such as banks. There has been a huge growth in phishing emails
seeming to originate from eBay and PayPal. Generally the messages will play on
the fears that your account has been tampered with in some manner; they ask you
to "verify" your account, password, and personal information. Phishing
websites appear to belong to legitimate services and organizations, but
they're designed specifically to gather your information.

Skimming: This is more of a high-tech form of theft in
which credit/debit card numbers are obtained by using a special storage device
when processing your card. Most recently this has been accomplished at ATMs
where a card reader has been fitted over the actual ATM reader slot.
Cards may be "confiscated" by the machine, and cash may be snagged at
the cash dispenser slot.

Pretexting/Impersonation: Most people are aware of the risk
of being impersonated by someone. Pretexting is the use of false pretenses to
obtain your personal information from financial institutions, telephone
companies, and other sources. Pretexting is generally performed over the
phone.

Databases: Databases themselves are not a threat, but they
are certainly a juicy target for thieves. You can consider large databases the
proverbial "pot of gold" for an identity thief. This is probably the
greatest overall threat because of the large volume of identities that can be
compromised.

How can you protect yourself from identity theft? There are as many methods
of protecting your identity as there are methods of obtaining it. In general,
for each threat there is an appropriate mitigating procedure or
countermeasure.